MERRY CHRISTMAS! 2017 The Year in Review

Merry Christmas everyone!  With the massive 2017 "Christmas Offensive" behind us all, I can settle in with a cup of coffee and put up a simple blog post wishing everyone a wonderful Christmas and a great 2018 to come.  I took the liberty of recapping some of 2017's most notable gaming accomplishments for me.

"Hot chow at the front?  We never had it so good!"  It's Christmas, but the war goes on.  "Hey Mack, don't be shy with that SOS"

Last night I read over most of my posts from 2017 and there was a distinct World War II theme to most of the months.  We started the year out strong with Arty Conliffe's CROSSFIRE and graduated into Battlegroup: Kursk.  We played some EPIC Napoleonics, first with SHAKO II, and then with Et Sans Resultats!, and dabbled a little in moderns towards the end of the year.  Also worked out some of the Seven Years War bugs by replaying my favorite SYW battle of all time, Lobositz with Black Powder.  Also got to play COMMANDS & COLORS TRICORNE at Brian's with his outstanding miniatures, and sample the new Brigade Fire & Fury.  We played Commands & Colors Napoleonics and refought Gross Enzersdorf in under 2.5 hours (the Austrians were routed).

A couple of nice surprises were Alex's UP THE BLUE! rules, which give an awesome, quick, and historically plausible World War II game at the company/battalion level, as well as Norm Smith's simply outstanding and ingeniuous hex-based TIGERS AT MINSK rules, which are literally the perfect scale and allow me to relive my college days of playing SQUAD LEADER but with miniatures on the tabletop.  Both of these rules will be part of my permanent stable of go-to games for all time.

And speaking of UP THE BLUE, I got to participate in a big 6 player MEGA GAME featuring the fighting during Operation Crusader on the infamous "Sunday of the Dead" or Tottensonntag!

Dave and I also attended 2 conventions this past year.  What's not to love about that?

So to recap 2017, I think there were some excellent games played but probably not as much progress (or gaming) as I would have liked getting my figures painted or standardizing and maximizing my terrain.

Also a distinct absence was noted in the American Civil War and American War for Independence games, which I'm hoping will make a comeback on my table in 2018. 

With all that said, I will be really focusing my efforts on two projects in 2018, I'm just not sure what they are yet!  More to come in upcoming posts this week as 2017 draws to a close as I have some more pondering to do on my key focus areas, but rest assured one of those focus areas will be World War II.  There is just too much lead and plastic to ignore it.

Hope to post my Soviet Scout Platoon tomorrow (Saint Stephen's Day!)  that Im finishing up now, as well as my Soviet Naval Company for Crossfire that are also being completed. 

Merry Christmas All!